Mukteswar dance festival begins on January 14

The sprawling Mukteswar-Parsurameswar temple complex will come alive with the Mukteswar dance festival that will begin from Saturday.The annual dance festival being organised by the Department of Tourism, is a part of a series of cultural events at the ongoing Ekamra Utsav, a festival designed by the department to explore the tourism potentials of Bhubaneswar. The Utsav includes the Rajarani national music festival, Toshali national crafts mela and Kalinga national martial dance festival.The three-day Mukteswar Odissi dance festival this year would feature three soloists –  Aloka Kanungo (Kolkata), Madhusmita Mohanty and Rahul Acharya.It would further have three duet performances by Pravat Swain & Arupa Gayatri Panda, Chittaranjan Acharya & Asmita Acharya, Raj & Ellora Pattnaik (Canada). The festival shall also showcase group presentations by the troupes of Art Vision led by Ileana Citarist & Group, Bichitrananda Swain’s Rudrakshya Foundation, Jyoti Srivastav & Group from New Delhi-based Vaishali Kala Kendra, ‘Shiva Bandana’ by Gopal Chandra Panda & Group and Pt. Raghunath Panigrahi & Group. The festival would conclude on January 16.The last event in the cultural calender would be the Rajarani Music Festival from January 18 to 20 on the lawns of the exquisite Rajarani temple. The festival would showcase some of the stalwarts of the three major music traditions of India – Carnatic, Hindustani and Odissi. The list of artistes include internationally acclaimed Carnatic vocalist O S Arun, well-known Carnatic violinists duo Ganesh-Kumaresh, prominent Hindustani vocalists duo Rajan-Sajan Mishra, veteran Odissi vocalists Damodar Hota, Ramahari Das and Bijay Kumar Jena and Odissi mardal exponent Dhaneswar Swain.